Dems antsy over CIA report

Wondering what happened to the controversial CIA interrogation report that the Senate Intelligence Committee voted to declassify a month ago? So are many Senate Democrats.

The response thus far from the Central Intelligence Agency and the White House: crickets.

Story Continued Below

Several Intelligence members are requesting updates and quick public release by the White House of the summary they voted to declassify in April. The document, which contains key findings and conclusions of a five-year probe by the committee, is expected to be highly critical of the CIA’s secret prisons and interrogation techniques used on terrorist suspects during the George W. Bush administration.

Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has urged the White House to wrest control of the declassification process from the CIA and is demanding rapid action. But, in an interview, she said she has received little feedback from the Obama administration and seemed resigned to a lengthy timetable.

“I would hope that it would be short and quick,” said Feinstein. “That may be a vain [effort].”

The White House, in consultation with the CIA, has final say over what portions of the summary are made public — and which are redacted. President Barack Obama has said he is committed to declassification, though the CIA is sure to weigh in on which sections of the document could be damaging to intelligence and national security.

“I don’t know what the reason is,” said Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who is not on the Intelligence Committee but receives separate briefings. “I don’t know if they’re checking out the information to make sure they don’t release something that’s sensitive, but I urge the director [of the CIA, John Brennan] to release it as quickly as possible. I think that’s the only way to rebuild the reputation of the agency.”

Most senators aren’t yet ready to torch the administration over what they see as an inordinate delay in releasing documents that the CIA should be quite familiar with, given that the Intelligence panel and CIA have engaged in an extended debate over the report’s substance since the committee voted in 2012 to approve the entire version of the still-classified 6,600-page report. The summary now undergoing declassification contains that report’s key findings and conclusions.

Hanging over all of this is Feinstein’s war of words with Brennan. She accused the CIA of cutting off access to an internal CIA document while her staffers were investigating Bush-era interrogation policies, while the Intelligence Committee has taken heat for removing that internal document from CIA property during the probe. The Senate sergeant-at-arms is now investigating the dispute.

That dynamic has served only to increase tensions between the CIA and the Senate during the declassification process — and now Democrats concerned with civil liberties are getting antsy.

“I’m patient, to a point. I called on the White House to intervene and take charge of the declassification process. I’m still waiting to hear from the White House,” said Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), a member of the Intelligence Committee. “Patience has a shelf life.”

“I would like to see them move more expeditiously,” said Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), another Intelligence Committee member. “It’s never as fast as you’d like.”

Intelligence members said that if the summary is not declassified in the next two or three weeks, their frustration will boil over and manifest itself publicly.

“I’ll start to get impatient in about two weeks,” said Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who caucuses with Democrats. “The CIA’s had this report for a year now. So they ought to know. It’s not like, ‘Oh, we’re just seeing it for the first time.’”

The White House offered no update on the unveiling of the hot-button document, which Obama can redact at will if he decides certain information could compromise national security. The CIA said it is working as quickly as it can.

“The CIA, in consultation with other agencies, is carrying out an expeditious classification review,” said spokesman Dean Boyd.

Some lawmakers believe the reason for delay is that the CIA isn’t worried only about security but also about limiting damage to its public image.

“They don’t like the fact that we voted to declassify it,” said Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), a former Intelligence chairman. “They hate doing that, because what it’s going to do is make them look real bad.”

“These things take a long time, particularly ones that are politically sensitive,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), himself a survivor of torture in Vietnam. “I’m not surprised.”

In interviews, Republican members of the Intelligence Committee that voted to declassify the summary were much less critical of the administration’s pace.

Some Republicans said the complexity of the declassification process, not political concerns, is delaying the administration’s review. There are hundreds of pages and thousands of footnotes just in the summary, complete with names that must be blacked out and intelligence procedures that must be kept secret.

“I suspect they’ll take a long time,” said Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.).

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee, is the rare lawmaker who acknowledged recent contact with the CIA. He said even the agency isn’t sure how long declassification might take but emphasized that the CIA is committed to declassification — and he urged everyone to hold tight.